From: Christopher Lovenguth (zantzant@hotmail.com)
Date: 06/07/02-11:56:25 AM Z
Hi I was wondering anyone could answer a couple a questions for me.I am
trying my first attempts at making Daguerreotypes and I am running into some
issues.
First, my items:
The plates I purchased from Theiss (4x5). I have a loose cotton flannel
wheel that I have attached to a table mounted 3500RPM grinder. I am using
jeweler’s rouge that is in the form of a wax stick that I apply to the
wheel.
I am using the Becquerel method.
Ok now the issues I have run in to:
First, it seems no matter what I do I can’t seem to get the scratch marks
buffed out of the plates. I can make in to a different pattern then what
they were originally when I received the plates from Theiss, but they never
seem to go away. I have tried to just use corn starch and cotton flannel by
hand to buff which seems to not do anything as well. Will there always be
tiny scratches no matter what I do, or am I not doing this right?
Second, is it possible to over fume with Iodine? My fume box is small
(length and width is little over 4”x5” and the height is about 3” to 4”). My
first attempt I heated the back of the plate with a blow dryer for a minute
(slightly hot to touch) and placed about 1 table spoon of Iodine crystals in
the middle of my box and fumed it for about 5 minutes (the box itself was
cold, around 60F). From what I could tell the plate was a yellow color
(flashlight off a white wall reflected). I then just wanted to see if I
would get black so I started to develop it under amberlith in the sunlight.
It did start to turn dark. When I took it out from under the amberlith I
notice that the black was actually powdery and would wipe off at the touch.
When I took off all the black powder, I notice in normal room light that the
plate was more magenta in the middle and faded to orange towards the sides
and ended with yellow on the edges (I'm guessing this is due to me putting
the Iodine in a mound in the middle of the box). This all cleared with hypo.
So I was wondering if I fumed too much and somehow had a sensitive layer
above the silver (the black I wiped off)? Or is this just the way it is and
if I had cleared with hypo the black would have stayed and bounded when
gilded and dried (common sense makes me believe this would not happen since
I know that there was no bounding with silver).
I know that these images would be very delicate, but what I experienced
seemed not right.
Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks, -Chris
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